Wednesday, December 07, 2016

Last Sunday, December 4, 2016, through SM Kids and SM Accessories, the Princess Academy came to the Kingdom of SM City Bacolod. We got an invitation to attend as guest and this will be the first time that Preemie girl will be attending, so you can imagine our excitement! But with the school intramural just finished, the on-going practices for her First Holy Communion, and as a full-time working mom nursing a bad cough, I simply had very little time and energy left to prepare. In fact by the end of the working week, I was trying to convince Preemie girl not to attend anymore. However, unlike in the past where my little girl was not that interested, this time she really wanted to go.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Kinship and bloodlines used to be so significant for me. Ever since my college days, I was always interested in genealogy and how my family was related to who or whom. I used to spend hours looking over family trees and tracing my ascendants, even to the point of reaching out to people who had the same last names as mine or any of my ascendants. I have created family trees on websites and shared this with relatives, near and far, old and new. Then I found myself becoming a mother to two children, a boy who just turned 25 and a girl, now 7. They may not be of my blood but they have all of my heart. Suddenly, bloodlines became irrelevant when it concerned my relationship with my children.

Monday, December 01, 2014

An Advent wreath is a wreath made up of various evergreen leaves with four candles that are lighted in the weeks of Advent to symbolize the light that the birth of Christ brought into the world. The four candles represent the four weeks of Advent. Traditionally three of the candles are purple, the color of kings and symbolizes prayer, penance, preparatory sacrifices and good works undertaken at this time. A rose-colored candle is used to mark the Third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete Sunday) as a time to rejoice over the closeness of Christmas and the coming of Christ. The successive lighting of the candles symbolizes the expectation and hope surrounding our Lord’s first coming into the world and the anticipation of His second coming in the final judgment.

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Aging is an inevitable fact of life, but it does not have to be burdensome or problematic. Just because a person is aged does not make him or her useless. My mother turned 80 years old in May but she continues to live a purposeful life. She has been suffering from osteoarthritis
for the last 8 years or so, but it was not until 3 years ago that she began
using a walker due to my insistence, primarily for her safety and my
peace of mind. Last year, she developed adverse drug reactions resulting
in gastrointestinal complications and lately, she gets tired more
easily. And so, as much as she would like to remain as active as she used to be, it is no longer possible and she has "retired" from most of her parish volunteer work and advocacy. And rightly so because I believe that our elderly parents and relatives deserve to be worry-free, to be taken cared of,
and comfortable in the remaining years of their lives. In 2011 I wrote an essay for EzineArticles on how to care for our elderly parents. I am re-posting it here to remind myself that growing old may be the last challenge in our earthly life, but LOVE will make every struggle, every difficulty and every pain easy to bear and endure.

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Mother's Day has come and gone, but the day before that a little girl asked me a question that needed an answer. She asked me, "are you Preemie Girl's real mother?" Now, I don't know why little girls would even think to ask such questions, but I would make a smart guess that they learn about these words and ideas from the adults around them. I don't think an innocent child would know that there is such a thing as a "real" mom (or dad, for that matter), if they are not made aware of the difference or this was not pointed out to them by...yes, adults. But that is another story.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

A friend posted on Facebook that they for the first time, will
be spending Christmas in the hospital. It brought to mind our own
hospital Christmas experience in 1976. My brother Ted who survived a
freak airgun shooting accident in July had been in the Iloilo Doctor's Hospital for the
past 5 and a half months, slowly recovering from 6 major operations.
My brother and I who were both studying in Manila would be spending the holidays with him, our parents and Culing, my Lola's ever loyal cook cum helper.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

The year 2013 will soon end...and I suddenly think, where did all that time go? In fact, it's more like...where did all those years go? Like the song Sunrise, Sunset in the musical Fiddler on the Roof (with a little twist)..."I don't remember growing older...when did I? Wasn't it yesterday, When I was small?"

Monday, December 09, 2013

I love comics. In fact I used to have a huge collection in high school up until my first year in college, so that my mother eventually had them all bookbound and categorized from classics to action to comedy. Unfortunately, I have very little talent in drawing, so whatever ambition I had in that field never materialized. But when my nephew started drawing short comic strips in grade school, I thought, "hey this kid got talent". The illustrations were good and the stories were imaginative, but I did not pay much attention thinking it is hobby he would outgrow. Then last year he started a comic blog which he calls, The Sharpiest.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

June 6, 2013 was a pretty busy day since it was the first day of Prep school for my little girl. My mom who does volunteer work as the parochial pre-school administrator was also busy getting ready to come along with us. It was only after I brought them to school and leaving for work that she casually said, "today is Papa's birthday". "Papa" was my grandfather, Lolo Bitong and it was his 109th birth anniversary.

Friday, April 19, 2013

My children Big Brother and Preemie Girl had their graduations this year. Big Brother finished his Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies last October 2012 yet, but he is included in the 2012-2013 annual yearbook since there are no semestral graduations at the University of St. La Salle. He no longer joined the graduation ceremonies last March because he has started working last January and could not get time off. I am very proud of him and so grateful that God has blessed him with a well paying first job :) And my daughter Preemie Girl? Well, she also had her culmination ceremony, with a recognition award.......from Kindergarten! Hahaha!

Friday, March 29, 2013

It's funny that despite the fact that I have been a parish volunteer for several years now, I never really wondered why we call the commemoration of the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ, a Good Friday? I just took it for granted that it is the way it is...up until I listened to the Society of the Divine Word televison presentation of the Seven Last Words this afternoon. I am embarrassed to say that maybe because this is also the first time that I am giving it my 100% attention, it is only now that I understand why in spite of the terrible events of this day, it is indeed a Good Friday. The Second Word says it all.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

The weather this past week tells me that summer has arrived albeit a little late. I was up and about early in spite of the fact that it was Sunday, because of the sweltering heat. And to add to everyone's discomfort, there were several blackouts ranging from 15 to 30 minutes duration that went on the whole day. As the day went by, I saw my son getting the inflatable pool out. The fact that he was too big for it did not discourage him from having a cool dip together with my daughter and niece. I was very tempted to join them but as you can see, there isn't much space left...hahahah. It was a fun thing to do on a really hot summer day.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

All my life I have known how it is to have a family member with special needs. My aunt (my mom's younger sister) was born normal but when she was three years old she had measles together with the rest of her siblings. She was the first to "recover" only to develop seizures about 3 days later. This was in 1940 and there was no measles vaccine then, nor was measles a well understood disease. She was brought to the best doctors but at that time the complications from measles were not yet completely known so they thought she developed poliomyelitis and treated her as such. My grandparents placed her on therapy to treat her flaccid paralysis but, she did not improve. Her condition was aggravated by the onset of WWII when accessibility to health services was not readily available. From then on, my aunt needed full-time caregiving in order to feed, bathe and clothed. Although she can walk wobbly, she cannot use her hands and eventually learned to feed herself with her feet. My grandmother also got sick by war's end and left for the United States for treatment leaving her family behind. My mom at age 14-15 became surrogate mother to her brothers and only sister. A little less than a year later, my grandmother came home healthier but by this time, the doctors also gave up on my aunt. They told my grandparents that she will not have long to live, at most only till her early twenties. Well, my Tita Mimi will be 75 years old this May and she is as healthy as a horse. She has outlived her parents and 2 younger brothers. It was only when I was studying to be a doctor that her condition was given a name, Spastic/Athetoid type of Palsy secondary to Post-Measles Encephalitis. And because of this, my mother was so afraid of measles, she had all of us immunized when the vaccine was made available in the Philippines in the very early '60's. When my grandmother died of cancer in October 1990 and 3 months later, my father also died of a massive heart attack, it was decided that my aunt will move in with us together with her foster child who was then 12 years old. It was not a difficult transition since my house was designed to be user-friendly for persons with disability. Today, she is wheelchair bound which I believe is something she is quite happy with since walking used to tire her a lot. She has actually "overused" three wheelchairs since she started using one in the mid-90's. She used to paint and write using her feet, but these too have been stopped due to her vision and posture problems. She spends her days cleaning the insides of her cabinets over and over again, which I presume makes her happy. Her speech has always been guttural but recently it has worsened, perhaps because she does not talk so much anymore and this frustrates my mother no end because she just can't understand my aunt. I am more patient in this regard and eventually I would be able to get what my aunt means to say. Her foster daughter is now married and no longer lives with us, so she has her room all to herself and enjoys watching all her favorite TV programs from noon till night. My aunt's presence in our life and home has taught us patience, kindness and the meaning of suffering. Looking at her, I marvel at how she has been able to bear all her trials with nary a complaint. Oh yes, she did have many "I wish" moments but all in all, she seems to be finally at peace with herself as she faces her twilight years.

Saturday, April 07, 2012

To be or not to be...concerned, worried, bothered, involved on one hand, or indifferent, detached, uninterested, uncaring on the other. That is the dilemma I face now-a-days with regards to my brother's almost 15 year old daughter. My brother who is a single parent lives next door with his two kids, a son and a daughter. The son started college last year and comes home only during breaks while the daughter is still in high school. My brother works in another city four days a week. He goes every Friday afternoon and comes home early Tuesday morning, leaving my niece whom I shall call Aloof Girl with their househelp cum nanny during those days. Her mom usually comes to pick her up on Saturdays unless something comes up and brings her back on Sunday afternoon. Her relationship with us has been good until last year when her brother left. Since her dad and brother weren't around, I would watch out for her and she did not like it. She felt it was enough that her father knew her whereabouts and resented my monitoring of her activities which basically just consisted of being informed where she is going and with whom. She complained to her dad that I was trying to make her into a nun. Imagine that! I told my brother that for a 14 year old, she has been given too much freedom. She always comes home past 6 pm even when her classes end before 5 pm, does not talk much about her friends or activities even when asked, and has been caught a few times telling half-truths. However, my brother believes that he is being a cool, supportive and trusting dad. I may not agree with his permissiveness but I can see how difficult it is for him to raise his children alone. Recently, she has become reticent, distant and generally uncommunicative towards me and my mom. If Aloof girl resents my intervening in her life as I am not her parent, then she should not run to me when she needs something or wants something to be done. I should learn to look the other way when it comes to my brother's children. I am not saying I won't make myself available for them when they need me, but I will no longer take it upon myself to feel responsible for and act like a surrogate mom to Aloof girl, especially since she does not appreciate it anyway. Although it was my hope that my mom and I would be positive influences in her life, I now understand that I am not my brother's children's keeper. I have to rethink my role specifically in Aloof girl's life. I thought because her parents are separated and her mother is not around that she needed a mom. I took it upon myself to take that role. I realize now that she does not need another mother. After all, she already has parents, albeit separated but still very much alive and kicking. When all is said and done, Aloof girl's upbringing is her parents' responsibility, not mine. Perhaps my role is simply...to try to be a friend.

Sunday, April 01, 2012

If only I could hold it off a little bit longer but Preemie girl is turning 4 in July and yes, I know...she needs to start school now. So it's off to summer classes for our little girl, in preparation for the regular school year this June. I enrolled her in our local parochial pre-school which has been putting out graduates who easily get accepted into the first grade of the big schools.

I am hoping that if she does well, she can get accelerated to Prep school by the time she is 5 years old since the government's primary and secondary levels will now be 12 years all in all (K12), as compared to the old curriculum which took only 10 years. That means Preemie girl will graduate from high school at 17 years of age (I was only 15 when I graduated from high school) and if she takes up medicine, that will be another 10 years!.

It's been 2 days now and so far, so good. She seems to be enjoying herself in the 2 hours that she is in class and made friends with another out-going little girl. She is surprisingly very well behaved and even eats her snacks without prompting! Awwww...my Preemie girl is growing up...sniff.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Last week, I wrote about Preemie girl and now it's Big brother's turn. My son whom I raised since he was 5 months old is now 21 and hopefully will be graduating from college this year. Unlike my daughter, I had no behavior issues with him when he was growing up. He was such an obedient child that it was easy to bring him along with me to public places because he was very behaved. It was when he started school that problems started. Although he was a sensitive and intelligent boy, he did not like studying. Unfortunately, I did not have the skill nor the inclination to instill in him good study habits because I too did not like to "study". Therefore, I could not teach him what I did not have, which is weird because I was and still am an avid reader and a life-long learner. It is not the learning part that I hated about school but the process of teaching of what must be learned that was being used by traditional schools. I was the type that needed teachers who knew how to challenge and motivate me. However, unlike my son, I forced myself to study when I needed to even if I found the lessons incomprehensible or was bored to death with the subject matter, while he simply did not care whether he passed or not. This attitude led me to do research on learning styles and learning disabilities as he was growing up. Finding information on multiple intelligence was an eye-opener for me but it seems that in 1995, not many teachers or schools were aware of this or if they were, they did not apply this in their teaching methods and remained very traditional in their evaluation and grading system. And so, my son went through his high school years struggling in all his math subjects but breezing through MAPE, Social Studies and the like. Like any concerned mom, I got him weekend tutors in math and Filipino to check his understanding and skills at the same time to give him some advanced lessons. He passed but clearly, he never quite developed a love for study.

BUT, there were other things that he was very very good at. For the longest time, it became a habit for me to sing to him nightly while putting him to sleep. I think I have memorized all the nursery rhymes and cartoon theme songs in the world. I even had a Spanish one. His birth-mother was tone-deaf and for this reason, I'd like to believe that his musical ability is all because of me. He first sang during his pre-school culminating activity where he had the role of the prince in Cinderella, and all through his primary grades up to high school, he was the class favorite to compete in the school's annual singing contest.

When he began his intermediate grades I would teach him some simple chords using the Yamaha guitar left to me by my dad. Before long he was mastering it and was teaching himself to play the harder chords. I bought him his first guitar soon after, which was upgraded to a more expensive one by the end of his high school. Today, he is good enough to get invited to play in college acoustic bands.

But it's not all about music for my son. He dabbles in photography, getting more adept at it as time goes by. He is also an accomplished swimmer, competing in high school intramurals and used to play little league basketball. But his other great passion is Taekwondo. Although expensive, I enrolled him in lessons when he was 9 years old believing that it would develop discipline and character in him. I did not know that it was going to be a long-term love affair for him. He had enough motivation to make it up to Black Belt- First Dan and joined competitions every summer. He was good enough to make it into the college varsity team and won a silver medal (it should have been gold, but that is another story...) in the senior division of the 2009 NOPSSEA. He plans to make 2nd Dan this summer.

He is very good with children and when he was 11, he asked to become a god-father to one of his nephews. He is a loyal friend, a loving, caring and protective son, grandson, brother and cousin. He does not abuse his privileges and never asks for his wants, only for his needs. Except for wishing that he has better grades, there is not much more I can ask for in a son. I continue to pray that he will be a good man, a man that God meant him to be. Although he is far from perfect and continues to be a work in progress, I have no doubt in my mind that my only son is bound for greatness.

Saturday, March 03, 2012

My old family home was a one and a half structure with rooms on the second floor, built on a 1000 square meters corner lot. The stairs had about 10 steps and as young kids we would slide down the long balustrade. We lived here for 26 years but unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our control, the possibility that we would lose this house was looming after 1985 and so, looking at our options, we could either build a new house or move into my father's ancestral home which was no longer occupied by then since my grandmother stayed in Manila most of the time.

My family home in 1962 just before we bought it from it's original owners

My father's ancestral home was even bigger. It was a two story structure with rooms and living areas both in the first and second floors. My grandmother as she grew older found it hard to stay in her second story room, so we had to move her downstairs. It was during this time that I saw how hard it was to maintain a large house and how dangerous stairs were, not only for old people but for kids as well. I remember my grandmother getting a minor nervous breakdown every time we would go careening down the stairs and jumping from the stairwell down to the dining area as a short-cut. My brother would also dangle his body from the second floor balcony so that my aunt would sneak up behind him and grab him to safety.

Since I was already working by this time, I decided to apply for a housing loan and with God's grace, got it approved. You see, it was going to be cheaper and more practical for us to build a new house rather than pay the bank for our old and dilapidated home. My mom was able to buy a 400 square meter lot in a neighboring subdivision and this is where we built our new house in 1988. I designed it in such a way that it will be a compact one story house with 4 bedrooms with T/B and NO STEPS. It was going to be small because I thought the people who would live there would just be my parents, my 2 brothers and I, our 2 household helpers and our beloved german shepherd, April. I was wrong...when my dad died suddenly in 1991, my maiden aunt moved in with us (my maternal grandmother who also passed away 3 months earlier built a house next door to us) together with her foster child and maid. Then I adopted my son 2 months after my dad died. Today in our home, we are 8 adults, 1 child and 1 dog ( Cookie, a black lab, this time), and the itinerant cat. I am not kidding :) We used to be 9 adults, until my aunt's foster daughter moved out when she got married. My brother was no longer living at home after 1990. Of the 8 adults, there's my mom, brother, son, aunt, cook, laundrywoman, nanny and I. Oh, and I forgot our gardener who comes twice a month. Can you imagine how crowded and the noise emanating from this house? We even get visitors who sleep over now and then, and there's always a flow of people coming daily at home, from cathechists, kids my mom helps to send to school, seminarians, parochial teachers, etc...etc...etc...By golly! the house needs traffic lights when this happens. HAHAHAHA! Although the house was not meant to accommodate this number of people, it doesn't really matter because the love, support, care, concern that we all have for each other is without measure. What matters is that we are one happy family and this is our home.

Our house, our home-built in 1988

"A house is made of walls and beams;

a home is built with love and dreams."

-- Unknown

"Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe or call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one."

Monday, February 27, 2012

I used to think that bringing up kids wasn't all that hard. My parents raised us their 3 children (1 girl and 2 boys), fairly and without biases. We all had the same privileges and got the same kind of punishment when we did wrong. I never felt any more special than my 2 brothers. But when I became a mother to a 3 month old baby boy in 1991, I realized that it was not easy at all and that parenting is the hardest job in the world where there is no retirement ever. And so when I took home a 5 month old baby girl (who was born severely premature) for Christmas in 2008, it was an act of faith and trust that this too is God's will for me and my family. You see, raising my son was a relatively fun task for me, maybe because as the eldest in my family and the oldest grandchild, I grew up looking out for my brothers and playing with my cousins, majority of whom were male. I have always been partial to boys, even as a child. I remember each time my mom became pregnant, I would always wish for a brother. Being used to boys, I understood them better than girls. I was worried not so much about the fact that she might have special needs, but that I wasn't too sure that I knew how to handle girls! If I just based my capability on the limited interaction I had with female cousins and my family's not too great experience with adopted or fostered daughters, I probably would have gotten cold feet. On the other hand, I love children regardless of gender and this angelic, fragile and helpless child stole my heart forever. Indeed, time flies because Preemie girl will be 4 years old in July. She is so different from her older brother when he was her age...in fact, she is the exact opposite. While my son was an obedient and quiet child, my daughter asserts herself all the time and could hit the right decibel to cause temporary deafness when she does not get her way. She is hyperactive and needs to be entertained, quite unlike her older brother who used to play with his toys for hours all by himself. She is inquisitive and a quick study, but is such a handful that I could not help but compare her to Big Brother who is now 21 and the only one who can make her obey at first try. He adores her, of course and enjoys being called "dada" instead of the usual term of manong (respectful title for older brothers). And thank God, except for a really fast metabolism and hyperactivity, she is as normal as any child her age. She is smart and adorable. And she can be so sweet when she wants to. She is all girl...loves using pink lip gloss and polish.

As I write this post, I am inclined to believe that the difference in behavior (aside from genetics, of course) between my 2 kids at that particular age (2-3 years old) is probably because I nurtured each of them a little differently. I had my son when I was a lot younger and with less responsibilities at work, so that I had more energy and time for him. I used to come home for lunch and spend part of the afternoon with him before going back to work. I would put him to sleep and even tutored him. When my daughter came to us, I was at work the whole day, coming home early evening just as she is getting ready for bed. Although she sleeps with me, the time I spent with her is considerably less than the time I used to spend with my son. She spends most of her waking hours with her nanny and since I would bring part of my work home, it was also her nanny who would put her to sleep. Now that I am out of work, I do have more time with her but I have to admit that at my age, an active child is really challenging. We will be putting her in nursery school this summer in preparation for the regular school year this June. I hope by then she learns to sit still, stay quiet and pay attention...otherwise, we are in big trouble.

And Big brother? Well, let me just say that he outgrew the docile behavior by the time he was in grade school...but, that's another story and for another post (big wink).

Friday, December 23, 2011

I love weddings. It always reminds me of a fairytale. Of course, a wedding is not to be confused with a marriage because not all have happy endings but I know that these two I attended in a week's span will be the happily ever-after kind of marriage.

A Blogger's Wedding

Last Tuesday was my blogger friend's wedding. They had a seven year relationship that culminated in a beautiful sunset ceremony in one of the prettiest chapels in the city. The wedding was basically a family affair with close and good friends in attendance. What was unique were the give-aways. The bride being a chemical engineer and environmentally conscious thought of giving different plants as their wedding remembrance. I got a jackfruit, a rambutan, and a bignay tree. I will be planting these in my yard and may these trees be a constant reminder of their celebration of love. God's blessings and happiness always to dear Glady and Levy!

God's Miracle and A Wedding in the family

My second cousin got married yesterday in a fairy-tale setting. She was so lovely, like a live Barbie doll. Looking at her, one would never have guessed she was born premature. She is pretty, tall and quite smart. I am honored to be one of her godmothers. How could a cousin be a godmother to a cousin, one might ask? Well, my cousin is twenty four years younger than I am...the age I was when I was a post-graduate intern in the biggest hospital in the province. Her mom who stopped over from Manila before crossing back home to Iloilo was only in her 6 month and a half of pregnancy when her water broke and she had to be rushed to the hospital. I was the intern on duty that day and I assisted at her premature birth. She was just a little bit over 3 pounds and her survival was God's miracle. She was so small, still inside her amniotic sac and did not look alive, but suddenly she made a small cough and started breathing! I picked her up running to the nursery, hurriedly baptized her Maria Theresa (with tap water) all the while shouting for the nurses to call the best pediatrician I knew at that time...Dr. Natividad Aromin. The first few days were crucial and she was placed in an incubator. After 2 weeks she was declared out of critical condition. She stayed in intensive care for about a month and a half and eventually was moved out into the nursery where she "resided" for another 2 months. I came to visit her as much as I could but being in a different rotation made it less regular. She was eventually discharged a few weeks before Christmas and her parents brought her back to Iloilo. I did not see her grow up, but she did come to visit as a teen and young adult with her dad on those not to be missed occasions. I did not see her again and lost contact until it was time for her to leave for the States and of course, Facebook made it easy for us to get in touch. Last year, she became engaged to her long-time boyfriend (surprisingly from Bacolod) and she asked me to be one of her wedding godparent. Although I did not expect that, I could not say no. I was there when she had her first breath of life, after all. This couple's relationship began in Iloilo and Bacolod, later with her in the US and him in Singapore, but love knows no distance and today's technology made communication easy for them. And so, after ten years, on December 22, 2012 on a sunny breezy afternoon at approximately 3:00 PM, Maria Theresa Del Rosario became Mrs. Michael Uy...As God made it possible for her to live, He made it possible for the two to finally became one.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

If there is one thing I learned about secrets is that life always finds a way of revealing them sooner or later. Well, this one is the later kind. But before I begin, I want to say that this is not my story, however reading John Silva's 2008 article "Lost and Found" in Starweek (also found here) about being reunited with a lost sister, I felt inspired and thought, why not? This story, like John's has a happy ending too. Of course, no real names will be mentioned to protect the privacy of the family.

This story began in the 50's when a young woman while taking further studies in the States met a young widower who was then doing the same thing. They fell in love and planned to get married. But the young woman's family was vehemently against her relationship with the widower who already had young children. The couple in spite of family opposition, continued to see each other and the inevitable happened...the woman became pregnant. After giving birth, she decided to return to the country where she started working in her home province and was quite successful in her profession. She continued to communicate with the man who by then has also returned to Manila, perhaps hoping that her family will have a change of heart. But after a few years, the woman decided to go back to the US. She sold her business and left her young daughter with her mother. The young widower continued to live in Manila raising his children and eventually he too remarried.

That should have ended their love story...but no. Fast forward to the future...one day I got a call from a friend asking if I know a certain someone. And I said, of course! She is like an older sister to me...why? Her answer was perhaps one of the biggest surprises in my life...I will never forget the feeling. Even now, remembering that moment, I feel a little teary. This is what I heard my friend say over the phone..."I think she is my sister". I gasped and my jaw literally fell open. All these years, not a few people in my small city have speculated on who the real father of my good friend whom we shall call "Inday" was. In fact there was one particular person that people believed was her father because this man and her mother were in the States at the same time. Inday in all the time I have known her has never ever mentioned her father. And I never asked because like most people I believed in the speculation that "that man" was indeed her birth father. How wrong we all were. Poor guy...God rest his soul.

So how did my friend discover they had a lost sister? This is her story. When her father passed away and she took it upon herself to clean up his things. While doing so, she came upon a box filled with letters and she got curious. It was uncharacteristic of her father to keep letters unless they were important to him and these were filed neatly in a box. She started reading them and to her surprise, they were love letters. Her first thought was, this woman must have been someone her father loved very much to keep these letters and as she continued reading, she saw the pictures...pictures of a baby, then a toddler...and then, she realized that this woman must have had her father's child. A sister they never knew existed! But what made it even more serendipitous is the fact that my friend now lives only minutes away from the last known address of Inday's mother. How that happened is a small wonder in itself. You see, my friend is a true-blue Manileña but was transported to our province when she married into a family from here. Now she believes that God paved the way for her to discover the existence of a sibling. Why? Because one, she married an Ilonggo, secondly that Ilonggo lives in the same province as her older never known to exist before sister, and third, because of that marriage, she relocated to this province, something that she never even dreamed of doing since Manila has always been her hometown. Where do I fit in all these? Well, my friend has been trying to put together bits and pieces of what information she could get from the letters when she remembered me! So she decided to call me, crossing her fingers that I might know this person since I lived in the same city and probably even went to the same school. She was right.

But it would not be as easy as I thought. I couldn't just call Inday who has been living in the States since after graduation and so, my initial reaction was to call her mother's sister who still lived here. That Auntie was dumbfounded, is to put it mildly. I think I shocked her into silence. Her response to me after asking if Inday's birth father was this man, was..."I will call you back". After a few minutes, she did and we talked. She said she will contact Inday and get back to me as soon as possible. The next day, she asked that my friend call her because she wanted to meet her in person. A few weeks later, I got an e-mail from Inday.

Inday grew up an only child left in the care of her grandmother while her mother married and had her own family in the States and her father remarried and had his second family in Manila. But Inday was not a lonely child. She had her mother's supportive sisters and their family and she was the pride of her grandmother being an achiever and consistent honor student. Still, she must have wondered about her father. So much so that Inday while studying in Manila tried to meet her father but she was not successful. It is not clear to me what happened but I was told that it did not go well and so, Inday never tried to see him again. It is ironic that Inday did not get the recognition from her father because today his entire family including his second wife has accepted her wholeheartedly into their fold. I can only guess that perhaps he has never told anyone of Inday's existence and it was too late to do anything about it. I can only imagine the pain her father must have felt for being unable to do so. But he should be at peace now knowing that Inday has been warmly welcomed into the family and has met all her siblings...and they are not few!

Life may not be fair but it has come full circle for my dear friend. The puzzle of her life is finally completed.

About Me

I am a member of the working class, first and foremost: a daughter, a mom, an auntie, a sister, a physician, a caregiver, the family driver and troubleshooter, house princess, devoted nurturer, concerned meddler, accidental blogger etc. I am not religious but I am a true Roman Catholic. I have great faith and trust in God's love and mercy.

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